Deadly

by Julie Chibbaro

  “Does Mr. Soper know you left?” she asked.

  “I mentioned it at my first interview, ma’am. But I told him I could work, so he hired me.”

  “Well, that seems neglectful of him,” she said. “I thought he was more interested in your future—”

  “It’s not his fault, ma’am. It was my own decision to leave school. I did go to Mrs. Browning herself and try to plead with her to let me continue my schooling at the same time. But she wouldn’t, so I left.”

  “Mrs. Browning?” the doctor repeated. “Did you attend Mrs. Browning’s School for Girls?”

  I nodded.

  “Why would a girl with your scientific skills go to a vocational school, of all places?”

  “My mother didn’t want me to go to Free School,” I said. “She thought Mrs. Browning’s would give me a better chance in life than she had. She doesn’t want me to end up a midwife like her.”

  Dr. Baker’s eyebrows raised. “Your mother’s a midwife?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I spent last summer helping her.”

  “So, you’ve done some doctoring.” Dr. Baker smiled. “And now you want to go to medical school?”

  I had never thought of my work with Marm as doctoring.

  “I’m not sure,” I said.

  “Is that so?” Dr. Baker’s eyes urged the truth from me.

  “Ma’am, it’s just … this case with Mary Mallon has got me questioning myself,” I said.

  “Questioning, how?” she asked.

  I spoke delicately, but something in me trusted I could be honest. “Well, ma’am, when I started working for Mr. Soper, I saw illness as a kind of weed, something that could be found and cleaned away. I didn’t think it could live inside a person without sickening or killing them, not like with Mary. Now it’s as if the disease and the person are inseparable. When the police officer threw Mary in the snow and they locked her up, they were treating her like a disease. But she’s a person, she has feelings. I can’t seem to think about the case without thinking about her, too.”

  The doctor looked at me as if she was evaluating my words, then she laughed one short bark; I was relieved at her laughter, though I didn’t understand it.

  “That’s exactly what they try to teach you in medical school,” she said. “Compassion.”

  “But I can’t pull apart what she feels and what I feel, ma’am.”

  “That will come with time,” Dr. Baker said. “You’ll learn to see the larger picture.”

  I wished I felt as confident as she did.

  “Do you understand the need for quarantine, Prudence?” Dr. Baker looked hard at me. I didn’t have an answer. She said, “Keeping Mary at a safe distance from the public is the difference between one person’s temporary discomfort and hundreds falling ill. Disease is a removable evil—that is the motto of our department. Mary carries the typhoid, Prudence. There is no way around that fact.”

  I wanted to ask her if she thought Mary herself was evil because she carried disease, but something in her face kept me quiet.

  Her eyes relaxed.

  “You are an observant girl, your notes are thoughtful and clear, you seem to care about people. You have a wonderfully curious mind. You know, Prudence, I think you’d make a fine doctor,” she said.

  Her words warmed me, like hands holding me. It was the strong opinion I longed for, the outside view I’d been seeking. She presented me with my innocent self again, the girl who wanted to do something meaningful with her life.

  Then my memories returned, of what we had done to Mary, of my own weak emotions. My doubts came back quick and strong.

  “Medical school is the most difficult kind of education,” Dr. Baker went on. “It involves the study of many subjects, and you will have to cut open bodies and handle inner organs. In order to succeed, you must want it more than anything.”

  When I took this job, I wanted to see a cell in the microscope more than anything. But now that I’ve seen so many other disturbing things, I’m just not so sure what I want anymore.

  Dr. Baker sat back in her chair, folding her hands against her waist.

  “It wasn’t easy seeing Mary in that police wagon,” I said quietly.

  “Our actions were for the greater good, Prudence. Surely you must see that, for all your reservations. We have stopped the spread of disease. As a doctor, you must make impossible decisions and face terrible odds. You have to know whether you can do that or not.”

  I nodded, wondering if I would ever see things the way she did.

  “It’s a slow process, learning about the human body and what makes us sick,” she said gently. “It’s even slower discovering ways to cure us. If we knew how to rid Mary of the typhoid germ, we would be able to release her. We need good brains to help figure these things out, brains like yours.”

  I had come to her with the intention of finding answers; instead I felt even more confused. She said I had the ability to become a doctor. But I didn’t know if I had the heart.

  The air felt uncomfortable suddenly. I cleared my throat and said I thought Mr. Soper might be looking for me. I thanked her and stood and went to the door and bid her good day.

  February 13, 1907

  My life is changing before my very eyes. Less than a year ago, I was sitting next to my best friend at school, trading notes with her about the silly lessons we were learning, and afterwards, shopping at the pushcarts together for supper groceries and talking about plans for our lives. She wanted to marry a writer of books—living above her father’s bookstore gave her that. Imagine being married to one, she’d say, the stories he could tell you! Now she’s in love with an older man, a farmer, no less. She would’ve laughed last year if I had divined her future the way it has turned out.

  And what did I want? To see my father again, to understand how the world works, why the sky is blue and why dogs walk on four legs. I never would’ve guessed I’d have a job where I could use my brain to its very utmost capacity. I didn’t think I would ever love a man, and that he would turn out to be my chief. I didn’t dream I could have the chance to be a doctor. Yet—I’m ashamed to say it—I am afraid. I fear going away to a school in Pennsylvania, far from Marm and Mr. Soper. What would happen to me there? Would I be able to understand the lessons? Would I fail and lose everything?

  I don’t know if I have the courage for this challenge Dr. Baker has presented me.

  My family is made of pioneers. My grandfather left his home with his baby and his wife and came to America. What did it take for him to do that? He left his own parents, and his aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews, a language he knew, a farm he loved. My father left a wife and young child to go to another country and fight a war. I don’t see how my family members tore themselves from the lives and people they loved, in order to press themselves into a new mold.

  Why does a person have to leave so much behind when they make one decision over another?

  February 15, 1907

  I found myself seeking out an old classmate this evening, a girl who has known me for much of my life. My meeting with her was revealing; in a way, she showed me where I belong.

  Mr. Soper sent me out of the office early so he could have a private talk with yet another strange man, which I must confess I did not like. It disturbs me when he keeps things from me.

  I wandered up Sixth Avenue in the orange sunset, not wanting to go straight home. I followed the springtime hints of snowmelt and soil, longing for someone to talk to. I felt as if I were one of a swarm of creatures, all drawn upwards in the same direction. I passed the shoemaker’s and the butcher’s and the baker’s, and all the office buildings that line the avenue. I looked into the faces of the winter-weary with curiosity. I’d been so absorbed in my own life, I had forgotten that others existed. I felt desirous of something fresh—a scent, an item of clothing. Weaving in and out of stores on the avenue, I purchased a scone, but it didn’t fill me. My hunger was not for food. Upon reaching 34th Street, I glanced in the wind
ows of Macy’s and thought I saw Josephine at the counter. I stared, unsure; I entered the department store and found it was another girl, similarly tall and pretty. I inquired after Josephine, and the girl told me Jo was in a family way and had been let go.

  I suddenly wanted to see her.

  I went to her East Side apartment, where her mother told me she had moved to the West Side with her husband, Willem Stryker. As I seemed to be on a mission, I jumped onto the nearest omnibus and rode west.

  I knocked at the door of her townhouse, and Josephine herself answered; we looked at each other without speaking. Her extreme plumpness and the green tinge about her face shocked me.

  “Prudence,” she said finally. “What are you doing here?”

  I shrugged and shook my head, strangely happy to see her.

  “Well, come in. I was just about to settle down for some tea,” she said.

  She showed me to a pretty, lacy paradise of a parlor. On her finger, diamonds sparkled, and for a moment I wanted what she had—a rich husband, a quiet place to read, long, empty days of waiting.

  A serving girl came in with tea and white cookies; Josephine popped a whole sweet into her mouth and chewed and giggled. “These cookies are the only thing that make me feel better,” she said. “Cookies and ice cream and sweet potatoes. Everything else makes me sick.”

  “You must drink milk and eat plenty of raw meat to have a good baby,” I told her.

  “Ugh, meat, I can’t even stand to smell it,” she said.

  “And when the baby comes, you must have your nurse feed it a mix of raw eggs and cow’s milk,” I said. “Keep it fat and healthy.”

  She stuck another cookie in her mouth and tilted her head, crunching and looking at me. “You work for your mother the midwife, don’t you?” she asked.

  “I used to,” I said. I was surprised she remembered.

  “Do you think she could tend to me?” she asked.

  “Doesn’t your family have someone?”

  “The lady my mama used died. Will’s mother wants me to go to Sloane’s, but I’d rather use your mother, if she can take me. Maybe you can come too,” she said.

  She couldn’t hide her fear of childbirth; she seemed very alone. I wanted to promise her I’d help her, but I thought of my job, and how Mr. Soper needed me.

  “If you can, Prudence, I would feel so much safer with you there,” she added.

  I nodded, and I wondered what her life was truly like, being married and with child at the age of seventeen. Was it as easy as I assumed? Did her husband treat her kindly?

  “How is Willem Stryker?” I asked.

  She chewed another cookie, looking me over.

  “You’ve never been in love, have you, Prudence?” she said.

  I saw how she viewed me—a dull girl with her nose stuck in a book, a brain without a heart. How I wanted to tell her about Mr. Soper, and the feelings that so troubled me! How I wanted to free the ache that lived with me day and night!

  “Love makes everything else seem unimportant.” She sighed.

  I looked at the surface of her shiny, pretty eyes. Her words started a fresh pain in me; I wanted to push her away, to leave her. I could not tell her about my feelings.

  “I must think about my studies,” I blurted.

  “What studies?” she asked.

  “At the Department of Health and Sanitation, where I work, there is a woman doctor. She has encouraged me—”

  “A woman doctor!” Jo exclaimed. She laughed. “Yes, of course. You’ve always been a doctor, Prudence, the way you study those books, like there’s actually something interesting in there!”

  I smiled and lowered my eyes, taken aback by her outburst.

  She said, “I remember in school you spent whole days just staring out the window, a cloud of thoughts above your head that no one else could see. Yet when our teacher asked you a question about the lesson, why, you could turn to her and always give the right answer. None of us ever knew how you did that.”

  I looked at Josephine; in school I had been so unhappy. I was different. I had spent most days imagining I was somewhere else.

  In a flash, I recalled my conversation with Dr. Baker. She talked about the cause, about girls who marched in the streets. They did not sit around thinking; they changed the world. But maybe they had started out like me, as doubtful, questioning girls, girls who longed to use their minds for a good and meaningful purpose. No matter how difficult a choice that might be.

  “There is a women’s medical college, in Pennsylvania,” I said.

  “You’ll be Dr. Galewski,” Jo said.

  It seemed so clear to her.

  “Dr. Galewski,” I repeated softly.

  Yes, that is who I will be.

  Josephine clapped her hands and laughed. “A woman doctor,” she said, “how that will turn Mrs. Browning’s stomach!”

  A warm grin started in my chest; it floated up through me and lifted the corners of my mouth. I rose to my feet, feeling lighter than I had in days.

  “I will return soon with my mother to check on your progress,” I said.

  I would start my doctoring, as Dr. Baker calls it, with Josephine.

  ——————

  A case shrouded in mystery by the Department of Health and Sanitation has revealed that a woman cook suspected of carrying the typhoid fever inside her healthy body has been locked up for the better part of a month with no chance for freedom.

  Mary Mallon, hired as cook by a dozen wealthy families in the New York City area, was captured at her place of employ late January. Mr. Herman Briggs, superintendent of the department, authorized Mr. George Soper and Dr. Sara Baker to raid the Bowing residence without a warrant in search of this human typhoid germ.

  Miss Prudence Galewski was on hand to help Officers Kevan and Hill arrest and imprison the poor, helpless cook, treating her like a criminal for possibly carrying disease, despite her obviously healthy state. The cook is presently being held at the Detention Hospital on the East River.

  One unnamed source at the hospital says the department claims that up to forty people may have fallen ill from food Miss Mallon prepared, but nothing has been proven as of yet. According to several of the families she cooked for, her meals were tasty and satisfying.

  ——————

  February 16, 1907

  Reading this article, I feel stunned, sickened, queasy. I feel as if we were under physical attack from an enemy who wanted nothing more than to breed hatred and contempt for our department. We seem like fools mistreating an innocent woman. Where is the truth in that? Where are the real details of this story?

  But I am not the one to talk to those reporters, who swim like sharks in front of our doors.

  Early this morning, after the story broke, several men from other newspapers gathered about on the pavement in front of our building, hungry for a story. As I walked up the steps, a man came to me and pushed his pencil and pad into my face.

  “Miss Prudence Galewski, is it true that you had a hand in the capture and arrest of Mary Mallon, the human typhoid germ carrier?” he shouted at me.

  I tried to pass him, stunned by his question, by his use of my name. He planted himself in front of me and would not budge.

  “Miss Galewski, does the department really have proof that this woman carries disease?”

  The way he shouted made me want to shield my head, to run from him.

  “Is it true you’re treating an innocent woman like a criminal? A criminal, Miss Galewski?”

  I could not breathe; tears gathered in my eyes, a burn began in my stomach. He would not step aside to let me through. The other reporters crowded me, throwing words at me. Like a pack of wolves biting into me. I covered my ears and bowed my head, hoping they would go away.

  Suddenly, from behind, I felt hands on my arms, grabbing me, pushing me around the man. I heard: “Leave her alone!” I tried to see who it was, but the hands guided me through the crowd. “Outta the way, give us room!” he d
emanded. This man directed me up the stairs and to my office, where he released me. I saw the face of the science fellow who had tormented me. Jonathan. I wanted to holler at him for touching me and thank him for saving me at the same time. I could not stop shaking. He walked away before I could collect my senses.

  All the months we worked to find Mary, all that we went through, boiled down to this one article. Now I know who the strange men were in our office, talking to Mr. Soper and Dr. Baker. I don’t understand why my chief and the doctor didn’t show them our notes or the test results, or explain the steps we went through, or the theory itself.

  Or maybe they did.

  Our superintendent is outraged; he can’t believe the brazenness of the press, and the way they twisted the facts. He called a meeting this evening; everyone involved in the case attended, even Dr. Parks and the policemen who brought Mary in.

  “We will give them no more information, since they don’t know how to treat it properly,” Mr. Briggs said. He’s a small, nervous man, but his voice boomed, “I don’t want any of you talking to anyone about this case. Not a name, not a place, not a single fact! That’s it! Not a word!”

  We found out that it was the Bowings, the family Mary worked for, who went to the newspaper looking for public sympathy.

  Before I left work tonight, I saw that Mr. Briggs had ordered men to be stationed in front of our building. We now have police guarding our doors.

  February 22, 1907

  The newspaper articles about Mary Mallon and our work have mushroomed, with a new crop of falsehoods every day. The Herald article named me as a medical intern, and the Sun said Mary Mallon has been removed from the city entirely, to a hidden destination in New Jersey. I am now famous in the neighborhood thanks to the papers, and I wake up with a stomachache every morning. Her Majesty Zanberger calls me into her stuffy, cabbagey apartment and tries to get gossip out of me. She has begun a scrapbook, which she shows to anyone who’ll stop long enough to look. “Everyone’s so proud of you,” she says, “and we want to know all about this human typhoid germ.”